Amanuensis Monday: Selig Feinstein and Tpheris Israel Congregation

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

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This week I look at a newspaper article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which mentions my second great grandfather, Selig Feinstein.

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St. Louis Post Dispatch, July 24, 1899, page 8.

New Congregation

Judge Flitcraft granted a pro forma decree of incorporation to the congregation of Ipheris Israel Monday. The officers are Dr. M. DeVorkin, President; S. Feinstein, Vice-President; J. Louis, Secretary, and Louis Blank, Treasurer.

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Notes:

1) In 1959 Tpheris Israel merged with another congregation, Chevra Kadisha. Tpheris Israel Chevra Kadisha still exists today. (Chevra Kadisha was the elder of the two, so I can't technically claim my ancestor was a founding father of the current congregation.)

2) While this only provides the first initial, there were only two Feinstein families in the St. Louis area in the 1900 census. The other head of  household was named Aaron. So this is most likely my second great grandfather, Selig Feinstein.

3) I previously knew that he had been active in the Chesed Shel Emeth Society, but I didn't know what synagogue he attended, much less that he was one of the founding officers. According to Zion in the Valley, Volume 2, Tpheris Israel was a merger of several early St. Louis minyans. (A 'minyan' defined simply as a gathering of at least ten Jewish adult males for worship.)